Mantic’s Terrain Crate Kickstarter

We’re taking a break from the little narrative of the last few posts to check out the Terrain Crate from Mantic that has just gone live on Kickstarter.

Who’s going to want it? Definitely RPG players and dungeon delvers. This terrain translates well to more open wargames, and even the likes of Guild Ball. It’s set to a 28mm scale so good with most mainstream games.

What you get is effectively scatter terrain for your gaming table. There are three options to choose from: dungeon, battlefield and town, all based on a fantasy setting. We’re talking, books, fences, crates, chests, mirrors, archery targets, forge equipment, kegs of ale, weapons racks… For me, hands down, the dungeon set is the shining star of the lot. That’s not just because the individual pieces look fantastic but because pieces like the mine and the dungeon debris can easily be repurposed for an exterior battlefield. You also get a wizard’s study with the dungeon set, complete with candles, bookcases, arcane apparatus and pointy hat. And Frostgrave players are going to drool over the treasure pieces!

Some of this stems from Dungeon Saga, a previous Kickstarter from Mantic. I’ve played through the Dungeon Saga campaign so can personally attest to the quality of the scatter terrain. It’s all single-piece and pre-coloured so you’re good to go right out of the box but if you wanted to paint it (of course you want to paint it) the detail is decent with pronounced recesses and edges so even a quick job using washes and drybrushing will make a great finish. And it’s robust. You can throw this stuff in a box of other terrain without having to worry about it getting damaged. On Mantic’s interview with Beasts of War, they even took a hammer to some of the pieces and they came out unscathed. Here are some more from the town set:

$75 gets you one crate which is quite a lot of kit, even excluding stretch goals which are already being smashed through. Adding more crates to your pledge will get you a little more discount on top. It is a Kickstarter, however, so you’ll be waiting an age to get your stuff. May 2018 is listed as an expected delivery date but you do get a hefty saving on the retail price so it’s worth weighing up the options. Kickstarter is tried and tested territory for Mantic so it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re going to see your order with minimal fuss.

Other Options
The Gothic Ruins set from Escenorama (Spain based so factor in shipping) caught my eye recently. This works at the same scale and gives you more of a mix and match approach where you can just choose the bits you want. Check these guys out for pillars, arches, statues, ruins, and my particular favourite, the Altar of Great Arconte which is made up from a few of the individual pieces:

Tabletop World also do some high quality terrain, both scatter and larger buildings. You’ll generally pay a bit more for this, and they are resin so you need to treat them with more care than the hard plastic options, but they look very high end. For me, the larger buildings are where Tabletop World shines, but since we’re talking scatter terrain here, this is part of their furniture set (priced at 18 euros):